


The Frailty of Lucy Lane

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Susan talks Lucy down after an interrogation gets a little out of hand.  A little exploration of one or two of Lucy's flaws.





	

Lucy’s heart was up in her throat, hammering the way it did when she was feeling dangerous.  Her fists were clenching and unclenching.  Her knuckles had blue-green blood on them.  And yet, he still wouldn’t tell her what she needed.  

Son of a bitch.

She punched him again.  His head snapped back and he spat some more blood onto the floor.  His voice was gravel against her nerves.  “I can do this all day,” he told her through a crooked, tired smile and split-up lips.  “I have nowhere to be, Director Lane.”

Another of Lillian Luthor’s Cadmus dead-enders.  He was a threat to everyone in this building, everyone she loved.  Kara, Alura, Alura’s sister Astra.  She was wild with hate for what he represented; he was tool of Cadmus’s monstrous disregard for life, for Lillian’s bigotry.  She almost didn’t care if he told her what she wanted to know.  She almost wanted to just keep bloodying him to feel the impact in her fists.  

Her father would approve.

She felt sick.

She kept punching him.

Words spilled out of her as she did; threats, curses, the story of how she cold-bloodedly killed men in Afghanistan, and it was a fictionalized version that she didn’t recognize, it wasn’t the version where she shot a couple of fourteen year old boys in suicide vests and still had nightmares about it.  No, it was a different story, one designed to frighten him, hurt him, make herself feel dangerous.  

“Ma’am?” came Susan’s voice from behind her.

Lucy didn’t stop immediately, until Susan said it again, more forcefully.

“Ma’am.”

Lucy’s jaw was working, like she was going to tear the guy’s throat out with her teeth.  

“You’re needed outside,” Susan told her gently, looking at something on the tablet in her hand.  Lucy knew Susan was only pretending to look at something.  She knew Susan’s ways well enough by now.  If she was really needed outside, Susan would be making eye contact.  She was being more gentle, less confrontational than that.  

Lucy realized a film of sweat covered her face.  Her chest was heaving hot breaths.  She paused to look at the alien in the chair, and take in the damage she’d done.  It wasn’t minor.

She stalked out, roiling, with Susan in her wake.  She could hear the tap of her boots, feel her worry, but she wasn’t able to quite bring herself back into her own body, not entirely.  It was a good thing she was wearing black, she thought with dark amusement, it wouldn’t show all the blue blood.

When she’d gotten a few feet from the door of the interrogation room, Susan at last touched her shoulder.  “Luce,” she said softly.

Lucy stiffened.  

“You’re not okay,” Susan whispered.

“What am I if I can’t protect the people I love?” Lucy answered in a choked voice, her eyes staring down at her boots.

Susan put a hand on her other shoulder, and turned her around.  She didn’t try to make her look up.  But Lucy heard her voice, soft the way not too many people knew it could be, assuring her, “You are Lucy Lane.  And you have nothing to prove to anyone.”

Lucy trembled a little.  That was always hard to hear.  Her defenses went up.  “I have to defend Alura…. Kara… Astra… Clark … J’onn…. M’gann…. Everyone under my protection….”

Susan sighed heavily.  “I know, Luce, but what you did back there was probably about half a dozen human rights violation.”

“He’s not human,” Lucy parried.  “He doesn’t have human rights.”

Susan chuckled a little, sadly, and clearly in spite of herself.  “Don’t try and lawyer your way around that, Luce.  I bet you if we got Her Honor on the phone she’d tell you the same thing.”

Lucy noticed the shaking of her own hands.  “Come on, you’re gonna bring our wife in on this?”

“Well, she is a judge,” Susan pointed out.

Lucy felt her eyes well up.  She knew Susan was right, of course.  Her rage was as much from protectiveness of her non-human family as it was from a host of other, darker things.  Alura wouldn’t want her violating her own code of conduct, her own principles, in a moment of anger, fear and frustration.  “I call shenanigans,” she tried to joke, but her voice broke, and she almost cried.

Susan pulled her into a side office and pushed the door shut, and then drew her into a tight embrace.  Lucy wished Alura was here, actually, despite her feeble attempt to joke about being mad at Susan’s threat to call her.  It felt incomplete without all three of them.  

She closed her eyes and felt Susan’s small, but very strong frame, her arms squeezing around her waist so hard she almost needed to gasp for air.  But she didn’t mind that.  It pulled her back into her body.  It pulled her out of the storm clouds in her head.  Susan; her small, strong, tough, real, loving Susan, who knew her better than she ever thought someone would.  

“Don’t go in there again today,” she whispered in Lucy’s ear.  “Work on something else.”

Lucy nodded.  It was good advice.

“I’ll tell people you’re busy and not to be disturbed.”  She stepped back and looked her in the eyes, and Lucy saw all of her concern, the little worry lines around her mouth.  “Go call Alura.  Tell her what happened.”

Lucy started to protest.  “I’ll tell her later.  I’m fine.”

Susan scoffed, giving Lucy a soft look, but her mouth was serious.  “You’re not fine.  This was triage, what we just did.  You need to get patched up.”  She pulled Lucy in for a brief, soft kiss.  “I’ll keep the show running.  Go call her.”

Lucy nodded.  Susan was right.   _ Am I that much work, _ she wondered,  _ that I need two people to take care of me? _

But maybe that was the wrong question.  Maybe everyone hurt, everyone struggled with old wounds, and everyone was work.  Maybe the question wasn’t why she needed that, but why everyone else thought they didn’t.


End file.
